The field of the present invention relates to a fixture intended to facilitate and reduce the number of physical items which appear on a stage incident to live concert performances. By way of background, a staged event especially a concert event generally will have a number of musicians forming a band or orchestra located on the stage. Incident to the performance, an array of fixtures are also present on the stage in order to enhance and direct the sound of the performers to the audience. For example, it is well known a number of box speakers are usually located on stage, in strategic locations, in order to direct the sound to the audience. In addition, and especially under current conditions, many performers and/or musical groups employ a variety of additional special effects devices incident to the performance of the concert. This is especially true with special effect lighting which is used to enhance and beautify the performance. A number of other devices are also employed up on stage, such as smoke machines and/or the pipe work necessary to produce smoke, where such live performances employ such special effects. The result is that the stage accommodating the performers and equipment becomes very congested in some instances, which has limited the venues where such performances may be produced. For example, smaller stages will not be able to accommodate a large orchestra with all the intended additional equipment including speakers, special effect lighting, and other special effect devices.
It has been observed that for those groups performing concerts requiring a plurality of speaker boxes, which also employs special effects lighting, the special effect lighting is generally mounted on tripods which are positioned on the stage in appropriate positions in order to produce the special lighting effect. Hence, in addition to positioning the speaker boxes on the stage, the stage must be sufficiently large to accommodate the positioning of the tripod arrangements with the special lighting effects. Additionally, in most instances, the special lighting effects require multiple tripods since there are multiple lights involved in a special effect display.
The present invention is intended to provide an improved fixture which will accommodate the mounting of special effect lighting thereon, the fixture intended and adapted to be mounted directly to the speaker boxes thereby eliminating the need entirely for a tripod arrangement for mounting the special effect lighting. This has the effect of reducing the space requirements necessary for both speakers and special effect lighting incident to the performance by a musical group employing such devices. The fixture of the present invention is adapted to be adjustable so that it can adjust to and mount upon virtually any size speaker box of the type generally employed at such performances.
By way of background, the art is virtually silent with respect to any types of fixtures which mount to speaker boxes for mounting additional special effects devices. The art shows various devices which mount to speaker boxes, but only for the purpose of enhancing the speaker quality. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,802,194 shows a speaker system which includes certain types of baffles mounted on base speaker boxes for the purpose of reducing or baffling the sound emanating from the speaker in order to enhance the primary sound. The patent discloses a permanent mounting of a baffling system which mounts to the speaker box in order to provide a speaker system capable of reducing the baffle effect and thereby increase the proportion of direct sound perceived from the speaker.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,714,723 illustrates a coupling bracket which mounts to speakers in order to couple a plurality of speakers together. As shown in FIG. 8 of the drawings, a number of speakers may be coupled together by using the coupling device of the -723 patent in order to secure the speakers together. Similar comments are apropos to the device shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,758,852. The subject patent shows a rigging system which mounts to the speaker boxes, in order to afford one the ability to rig and suspend the speakers in order to direct the sound to the audience in a particular venue. Various figures show different arrangements of rigging speakers together by using the rigging system as defined in the -852 patent. Other devices which mount to a speaker box are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,996,728 which again is another variation of a speaker rigging system which operates to couple speakers together in order to rig them together and suspend them in vertical columns. This is used where a multiple array of speakers are required in order to achieve a certain sound quality and intensity incident to the concert or performance being produced. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,882,760 shows a system wherein a plurality of different range speakers are mounted to the top of the face speaker in order to emanate sound in a non-directional manner. The assembly is mounted to the top of a speaker box, but is generally fixedly secured thereto in order to provide a multi-speaker system which is interconnected.
At present, in order to mount special effect lighting on stage incident to production of a musical performance, the tripod arrangement is the method for deploying the special effect lighting. This requires that some space be provided on stage, to accommodate the positioning of each of the tripods holding special effect lighting. Hence, in addition to positioning speakers on stage, additional space is required for the tripod arrangement to accommodate the special effect lighting.
It will therefore be appreciated that the present invention is intended to provide a fixture which accommodates special effect lighting, but eliminates the need for any tripod stand for holding the special effect lighting in position. The fixture of the present invention is provided as an adjustable fixture which mounts to the top of any of the standard speaker boxes used incident to such musical live performances on stage, and will hold the special effects lighting above the speaker boxes. Hence, the fixture of the present invention reduces the amount of stage space required for the production of a musical performance.